Changeling
by arainymonday
Summary: When Blaine is a child, a faery steals him away. But humans are meant to sin, to change, to die which can never happen in the faery realm. Based on the poem "The Stolen Child" by W.B. Yeats.
1. Come away, o human child

**Disclaimer:** I'm just playing in the sandbox. If you recognize it from elsewhere, I don't own it.  
**Ships**: Klaine  
**Timeline:** Historical fantasy, Ancient Scotland  
**Spoilers:** None  
**Rating:** M for nudity, sex, homophobia, violence, character death/afterlife, and thematic darkness

**Author's Note:** Hello, my name is Heather. I would like to say just a few words before you begin reading.

This story is based on the poem "The Stolen Child" by W.B. Yeats. I encourage you to read it before reading this story, because what you think happens here depends on how you interpret that poem. You can find a copy of the poem here (remove spaces): www. online-literature yeats/816/

If it fits your reading style/schedule better, there is a PDF download of this story available on my website. You can find a link from my author profile page.

Thank you for clicking into this story. I hope you read and enjoy. Please review if you are so compelled and come find me on Tumblr: arainymonday.

* * *

_Come away, O human child!_  
_To the waters and the wild_  
_With a faery, hand in hand,_  
_For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand._

"The Stolen Child" by W.B. Yeats

* * *

**COME AWAY, O HUMAN CHILD**

The screams of childbirth drew the faery to the farmhouse outside the village in the Lowlands of Alba. He tiptoed through the misty barrier between faery and mortal realms to the edge of a dense wood over a hilly, green land and watched through the window with full moon above and flickering candle within as the midwife delivered a baby boy, bloody and shrieking, from his mother's womb. The midwife brought the child to a basin beneath the window to clean him off, and the faery snuck forward through a garden coming to life in the early summer and climbed onto a woodpile to peer through the glass at the infant human.

A more beautiful child the faery had never seen. A tuft of wet, black hair stuck to his head, and his face contorted in a protesting wail at the cruelty of bringing him from his warm, safe womb into this cold, cruel world. The faery tapped the glass with his fingertip, and the newborn ceased his crying at once. He opened wide his eyes, as blue as all baby's were, and blinked through the window at the faery. Fuzzy though his vision was, and would remain for some months still, the boy child blinked and cooed at the faery as if he recognized the whispered blessing on the faery's lips.

"Have you decided what you'll call him, Isla?" the midwife asked.

"After many heated fights, Callum has given in to my superior collection of names," the mother replied.

Isla lifted her head from the pillow as the midwife brought the clean infant wrapped in a fluffy red wool blanket to her. The mother teased her son's cheeks and nose with the tip of her forefinger, and tears of joy spilled from her eyes as she laughed and cooed over her son. Not even the pain of childbirth and the after works of the midwife cleaning her up could dull Isla's happiness.

"Hello, there, my dear little boy. Welcome to the world, Blaine."

The faery smiled one final time at the infant and slipped away from the window back into the woody landscape and across the secret divide between faery and mortal realms.

Over the next six years, the faery returned to the farmhouse on the edge of the village many times to watch from afar as Blaine grew into a perfect human child. He supervised Blaine's first steps in the backyard and taught him his first words and fed him wild cherries from the forest. But always he disappeared into the mist before Blaine's parents saw him. The people of this country had no love of faeries, whom they blamed for all manner of ills beyond their control: poor crops, foul weather, bad luck.

And over those six years, the faery began to change himself, as all changelings have the ability to do. But rather than imitating Blaine's chubby cheeks and curling hair, the faery plucked from Blaine's mind the human notion of faery looks: silky hair the color of tree bark, blue eyes shining like starlight on the faery pond, skin glowing as if in moonlight, ears shaped like delicate leaves. The day the faery arrived in the form of a faery child the same age as Blaine, the boy laughed and clapped his hands excitedly.

"Now we can be best friends!" Blaine cried happily.

He took the faery by the hand, and they ran through the trees, jumping over fallen logs and splashing through streams. Every day, they met by the same yew tree in the afternoon and played fantastical games in the forest. When Blaine could not come out and play because of bad weather, he sat by the window with heartbreak on his innocent face, and the faery sat by the yew tree smiling back sadly.

Six years the faery observed the humans in the village and realized many disturbing things about the nature of humans, though never in the sweet, innocent children.

* * *

The little boy sat on the bare wood floor of the farmhouse playing with woodblock animals going to war with one another. Currently, the bears were beating the sheep and cow alliance. When the father came in from a long day working, he kissed his wife where she sat by the cooking fire slicing a meager selection of wilted vegetables into broth, and scooped his son into his arms.

"How is my son today?" he asked loudly, and tickled the boy's fleshy tummy.

Blaine squealed and shifted around in his father's strong arms. "I'm well, daddy. I helped mommy pull up the vegetables from the garden, and then she let me go play with my friend in the woods."

"Good! Children should be children, no matter what."

Isla and Callum exchanged a dark glance over the top of Blaine's curly hair. The vegetables going into the stew, he realized, were fewer in number and smaller than even a day before. For going on a year now, the faeries had cursed this village and turned the weather against them. The soil would not produce, and everywhere families accustomed to comfort and full bellies learned to live without or hung for theft.

Callum sat Blaine on the floor again to return to his toys and crossed the modest dining room to speak lowly to his wife. His shoulders slumped as he shared the news that there were no jobs in the village except ones that did not pay. He would try again tomorrow. He did not mention that he had taken those jobs without a wage to keep himself occupied and help his neighbors. It would only upset Isla that their neighbors did not come to their house to help when they could. Callum believed the best of people. Their neighbors would repay them with kindness someday. Isla would call him a fool for thinking so.

The routine went on for weeks. Callum looked for work in the village and found none, Isla kept up the house and garden as well as she could, and Blaine played with the wooden toys his father carved for him at night. The boy now had a fox and rabbit too, and that was the only betterment for the family.

But even little boys who have new toys lose their sweetness if their bellies are empty.

"How is my son today?" Callum cried, scooping Blaine up from the floor.

"Put me down!"

Callum's joy deflated and he deposited his son on the ground again. "You're very curt today."

"He's very hungry today," Isla said pointedly.

"What does that word mean?" Blaine asked, scowling at his father.

His parents did not hear him. Isla jerked her head in the direction of the cutting board. The three potatoes there looked limp and translucent, almost as if they did not exist at all, and the chickens had provided a meager four eggs that day.

"I want to go play!" Blaine shouted.

"Have you helped your mother –"

"Let him," Isla interrupted. Callum nodded at his son, who raced to the door with his wooden animals abandoned on the floor. "I don't want him to see me cry. Callum, we can't feed the one son we have. How are we going to feed another mouth in half a year?"

Blaine heard none of his parents' discussion about the little brother or sister he would have in five months. Nor the one that followed about whether the little brother or sister would even arrive if Isla continued to skip noon meals so Blaine could have a slice of bread. All over the country, parents held the same conversation while their children played to forget their grumbling bellies.

"Hello? Are you there?" Blaine called.

The faery popped out from behind the yew tree with a tight-lipped frown on his face. He crossed his arms and refused to look at Blaine, even when the little boy ran around him in circles to try and make eye contact.

"You're mad at me."

"You haven't come out to play with me all day, and it's a perfectly nice day," the little faery snapped.

The boy scuffed his shoe on a patch of exposed dirt. The lack of rain had turned the usual dark, rich earth sandy and dusty and worthless.

"I'm sorry," Blaine said, in a small voice. He sniffed and wiped at his eyes.

The faery extended his arms and gathered Blaine into a hug. "Don't cry, Blaine. We'll play now and everything is always better after we play together."

The boy nodded and allowed the faery to take his hand and lead him deep into the forest where they had built a secret fort between two fallen trees. They scrambled over the mossy, rotting logs of ancient maple trees and dropped down into their grassy fort. The faery plucked wildflowers and began weaving a daisy chain.

"What's your name?" Blaine asked suddenly. "We've played together our whole lives, but you won't tell me your name."

"I don't have one," the faery said simply. "My people choose our own names when we come of age, and I haven't yet, so I don't have a name."

Blaine cocked his head to the side. "You should pick one anyway, just for now so I can call you by a name."

"I can't! I would get into trouble!"

"Then you should let me pick one to call you," the boy said.

The faery scrunched up his face and considered. "Fine. But you have to promise to call me by my real name when I pick one."

"Deal!"

Blaine held out his little hand, but the faery did not shake it. He cocked his head at Blaine, so the boy placed the faery's hand in his own and squeezed. The faery laughed.

"What a silly way to make a deal. My people do it this way."

The faery set aside his daisy chain and shifted onto his knees. He closed his eyes, puckered his lips, and leaned forward. Blaine's eyes widened dramatically when the faery kissed him wetly and pulled away hastily with a blush on his cheeks.

"You can't do that!" he hissed. "Boys aren't supposed to kiss other boys!"

"Why not?" the faery asked innocently.

"I don't know, but they're not. We're supposed to kiss girls."

"That's a stupid answer."

The faery clamped his hands on Blaine's cheeks and pulled him into a long, hard kiss like he'd observed the teenagers in the village doing in dark alleys when they thought no one could see. Blaine struggled for a moment, and then kissed back twice as eagerly. The faery pulled away and flashed a smug expression at his best friend. He threw his arms into the air and fell backwards onto the soft grass. Blaine stretched out next to him on his side with his chin propped on his arm.

"I will always like kissing boys best," the faery declared.

"I will always like kissing you," Blaine sighed wistfully.

The faery giggled. "So what's my name, Blaine?"

"Well … you were very curt today."

The faery made it clear that that was a ridiculous name no respectable faery would choose for himself. Those weren't even letters in the faery language. But Blaine liked the way the sounds rolled on his tongue, so the faery gave in and let his best friend call him Kurt.

* * *

A week passed before Isla noticed a change in her son. On a Thursday, when gray clouds that promised rain at last rolled over the village and blotted out the sun, she looked up from the dry, dusty garden at her son and found herself staring at a strange child. Blaine sat on his heels peering up at the sunless sky, yet a light radiated around him like moonlight beneath his skin and his eyes sparkled like starlight on still water.

"No!" she cried. "No, no, no. Not my baby boy!"

Isla scrambled across the barren garden and ran her hands over her child's face. She caressed his soft skin and silky curls, examined each of his fingers and toes, and hugged him close to her while her tears turned into sobs.

"Mommy?" Blaine asked, with a wobble in his voice.

Isla checked her tears and held her son at arm's length. "The friend you play with in the woods. Is he a faery?"

The little boy nodded. "His name is Kurt, and he's been my best friend since forever. He was there the night I was born."

Isla's eyes slipped closed as dread stole over her. Her son had been touched by the faeries, marked from birth to play some part in their capricious games that always ended in humans getting hurt. She feared, most of all, a changeling stealing her son away and imitating sweet, precious Blaine, and she none the wiser, loving it like it was her own.

"Listen to me, Blaine," she said firmly. "You are never to invite your friend into our home. Is that clear? Never invite him inside!"

Blaine nodded quickly, and Isla left him in the garden while she retreated into the house to cry again in private. What a horrible turn their lives had taken: a drought in a country that drowned in rain most years, and a faery taken a shine to her son. It would all end in misery, as it always did when faeries played their wicked games. The town would starve, and her precious son would take the blame for catching the eye of a faery.

She could not bear to see the faery touch shining in his face and eyes. The light was a clock ticking backwards to the day she would lose her firstborn child. A mother should never have to know her child faced a fate worse than death.

From that day forward, Isla never looked at Blaine again.

* * *

The villagers spoke longingly of autumn, when surely this unnatural drought would break, and yet they feared autumn too for they would surely have a meager crop to last through the winter. The riverbed beneath the bridge into town ran dry in August, and the villagers began whispering of faery sightings in the wood.

Callum shook his head in disapproval. To blame others for misfortune, he supposed, was natural enough, but he would not let hard times break his spirit. Every day, he went into the village to look for work, and when he found none, came home to chop more wood and think up repairs around the house. Optimistic as Callum tried to remain, his hopefulness did not cloud his pragmatism.

Isla went without morning and noon meals, and in the fifth month, lost the baby in her womb. Blaine would have no brother or sister. Blaine stopped playing with his wooden toys before meals. He sat lethargically beside the hearth, staring with sad eyes at the small meals his parents could provide him: broth or eggs, and perhaps stale bread, if the baker had any left. The boy's once chubby cheeks had hollowed until Blaine look frail and sickly.

"Stop staring at him," Isla ordered.

"I wouldn't have to stare if you looked at him at all," Callum returned hotly.

"If you're so concerned for his well-being, then do something. There is a whole forest outside our front door."

"Are you mad, woman?" he demanded. "That land belongs to the Laird. To take anything from his land is certain death."

"To not take anything is the same."

Callum leaned back in his chair with the block of half-carved wood hanging from his limp arm. His eyes fixed on the back of Blaine's head while his mind swirled with terrible thoughts. If their fortunes did not improve, it would not be long now before his son joined the row of tiny markers already beginning to appear in plots.

He couldn't bear to think about laying his only child's small body in the ground, yet every day that passed brought them closer to that eventuality. A father should never have to know his child faced a slow, agonizing death at such a young age.

From that day forward, Callum never stopped looking at Blaine.

* * *

Some days, when Blaine came out to the woods to play with Kurt, they did nothing but lay in the grass in their secret fort while Blaine clutched his stomach and sobbed. Then Kurt took Blaine's head into his lap and stroked his curls gently while he sang a song. Blaine never quite caught the words, but they soothed him and the ache in his belly.

Nighttime was the hardest for Blaine. With the house quiet around him and without Kurt to sing gently to him, the only thing he had to think about was how little he'd had for supper and how much more he wanted.

A tapping on his window late one night brought Blaine from the edge between sleep and nightmares. He rose from his bed to find Kurt standing by his window with the bright smile that meant he had something important to tell Blaine. The little boy padded over to his window and eased open the latch.

"Give me your hand, and I'll help you inside."

Kurt climbed through the window more awkwardly than he climbed trees because he could use only one hand. The other cupped hand held a palm full of bright, shiny red berries. Blaine's mouth watered at the sight of the plump fruit. Even in the pale moonlight through the window, he could see the juice staining Kurt's skin.

"I know you were really hungry today, so I picked these for you."

The boy and faery sat on the end of Blaine's lumpy goose feather mattress. The boy greedily plucked the berries from Kurt's hand and gobbled them down. The faery watched quietly as his best friend gorged himself on fruit. Too soon, the berries were gone. Blaine's lips were stained red from the juice, and try as he might to lick the flavor into his mouth, it was not the same as eating the fruit.

"I want to take you away from here to someplace better where we can play together all the time and no one says you have to want to kiss girls and you'll never be hungry again. Blaine, will you come away with me?" Kurt asked.

The boy paused and considered his friend. He thought of his mommy who never looked at him anymore, and his daddy who never looked away from him anymore, and they seemed to him like very different people than the happy parents who used to love him. He nodded.

"I'll go anywhere with you, Kurt."

The faery grinned so widely his teeth showed. Blaine had never seen him happier in his life, and he liked making Kurt that happy. The faery pulled the daisy chain from a pouch at his hip and began winding it around Blaine's head, shoulders, neck, and arms like it was ivy and Blaine was its trellis.

"I hoped you would say that," Kurt confessed. "I've been growing this for a while to use. There's something special faeries have to do to take humans to the faery realm. Listen carefully, Blaine."

The boy listened attentively to the song Kurt had sung to him so many times in the past, clear back to the day he was born and blessed through the window. This time, he heard the words, and though he didn't understand what they meant, he thought they were very beautiful.

"Come away, O human child!  
To the waters and the wild  
With a faery, hand in hand,  
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand."

Two shadows moved through the forest hand in hand that night towards the misty divide between human and faery realms.

* * *

In the morning, a fierce rainstorm ripped through the Lowlands. The baked earth could not compensate for the sudden downfall, and the river and loch flooded their banks. Water stood stagnant in the fields, and the crops were utterly decimated that year.

But more tragic yet was what Callum and Isla found in the morning. Their precious little Blaine lay dead in his bed, peaceful as if in sleep, but with rosy fingerprints around his neck.


	2. To the waters and the wild

**TO THE WATERS AND THE WILD**

Two young men lay naked in the glen, breathless and wrapped up in each other. Blaine rested his cheek against Kurt's glistening chest and hummed contentedly in the back of his throat while the faery twisted the sweaty curls at the nape of his neck.

"I almost won that time," Blaine murmured into Kurt's skin.

Kurt laughed breathlessly when the whisper turned into a kiss. "No, you didn't. But you're more than welcome to try harder next time."

Blaine chuckled as he rolled onto his back. The soft, springy grass dotted with colorful wildflowers felt cool against his skin, and the stars sparkling in a cloudless sky winked down on him. Kurt stretched out on his side next to Blaine and traced patterns over the subtle muscles of his chest and torso with his fingertips.

"You're tickling me again," Blaine laughed and tried to squirm away, but the faery wiggled around with him. There was only ever one way to end the tickling. Blaine teased the tip of Kurt's delicate leaf-shaped ear, and the offending digits stopped tickling and gripped at Blaine's skin.

"So soon, Blaine?" Kurt asked huskily, only half teasing.

Blaine let his hand drop, and Kurt settled into his open arms. They lay in silence while their breathing evened out, staring at the bright stars and letting the nighttime sounds of the forest tempt them into sleep, but the din of gathering voices from lower in the valley kept them alert.

"We should go to the gathering," Kurt said at last.

"But I'd rather stay right here," Blaine purred. His tongue danced along the point of Kurt's ear, and a shudder passed up the faery's body. His cooling skin felt flush again.

"Blaine," Kurt moaned. The young man took the tip into his mouth and sucked at the delicate skin. "We have to go. It's a party in your honor."

Blaine's hand traveled down Kurt's smooth stomach, and the faery let out a frustrated groan as he shuffled away from his companion. Blaine pouted, although Kurt felt himself the injured party in this obvious attempt at distraction.

"You've been here a hundred years," the faery said reasonably. "The others have gone to a lot of trouble to celebrate with you tonight."

"I'd rather celebrate being your companion for a hundred years," Blaine said, winking at Kurt.

The faery clucked his tongue. "We just finished 'celebrating' for the fourth time today. Why don't you want to gather with the others?"

Blaine's lascivious grin fell into a frown, and he collapsed onto the grass to contemplate the stars in his bad temper. Kurt sat crossed-legged over his companion, and took Blaine's hand in his own, partly to comfort him and partly to keep it from straying to the area of Kurt's body Blaine was so preoccupied with today.

"I hate the way they look at me," Blaine admitted. "Every time I see one of them, they give me this look like, 'What does he think he's doing here? He's not supposed to be here.' I'm supposed to be here."

The faery stroked at his companion's face and blinked away the moisture in his eyes. "I'm sorry, Blaine. It's my fault they don't accept you. I broke the rules letting you become a man, and now you have to pay for it."

"No, Kurt. I'm glad you let me grow up here. We wouldn't have this special bond between us if we'd stayed seven-years-old forever. I'm happy to be seventeen forever with you. I just wish the others would let go of their stupid double standard. Finn brings back teenage girls all the time, but it's the end of everything if you take a companion."

"That's because Finn is a silkie, and I'm a changeling," Kurt said gently. "I'm supposed to feel hunger and greed and things children do. Lust and romantic love are not supposed to be in my nature."

Blaine furrowed his brow and considered Kurt for a long moment. "Then what is my nature as a human supposed to be?"

Kurt looked away sharply. In their century together, Blaine had never asked the question, and Kurt had never offered an answer. The young man had noticed differences in himself and the faeries that made him uneasy. Their frivolity took the form of giddiness; his own tended to be darker and more passionate. They felt no remorse for the human lives they destroyed and sometimes ended; he felt gnawing guilt for years after lesser wrongdoings.

"It doesn't matter," Kurt insisted. "You live in this realm, and you're my companion. We'll be here together forever."

"But what if they have a point? What if there are more differences between us than what we can see on the outside?"

Blaine gestured at their naked bodies. Kurt had no hair anywhere on his body save for his head, his skin shone like moonlight even in the middle of the day, and his eyes sparkling like starlight on water held more wisdom than a human could fathom. Blaine had thick, black hair just about everywhere it seemed, and while his skin held faint radiance, it was more like sun-kissed olive than moonlight, and his eyes only sparkled when he was deliriously happy and hopeful.

"You do not have the nature of your people," Kurt snapped. "I took you away before they could corrupt you. Now let's go to the party."

Blaine stared as Kurt stomped across the glen to retrieve their thin summer clothes interweaved with the vines and daisy chains they'd run through and rolled around in that day.

"So human nature is … corrupt?"

Kurt bit his lip. He knelt beside his companion and ran his hands through Blaine's long, unruly curls. "Blaine, please don't do this. It doesn't matter anymore. You are a good man, and you always will be. You've grown up, but you're still that sweet, innocent boy I brought here a hundred years ago."

Reluctantly, Blaine agreed because he could not stand to see his beautiful companion hurting because of him. He dressed and went to the party with Kurt. He let the faeries and their human playthings – many of whom, unlike Blaine, would be sent back to their own realm when the faeries had had their fun – ply him with goblets of wine and put a crown of flowers on his head. He danced to the light, happy music and let a delicious buzz fill up the space between his ears. Kurt loved him again in their glen, and Blaine fell asleep drunk and sated.

But when he awoke in the morning with a clearer head and watched Kurt sleeping still on the bed of grass and wildflowers, he pondered again what Kurt had said about human nature. The notion that his people were more flawed even than the capricious faeries would not leave him in peace.

* * *

Blaine ran down the grassy slope towards the loch, pulling off his clothes and tossing them aside as he ran. He waded thigh-deep into the water with a carrying laugh on his lips. The sun had warmed the chilly water to a reasonable temperature today. Blaine turned to watch Kurt's more careful approach. The faery dropped a pile of clothes by the water's edge.

"Come on, Kurt! We wanted to swim, not stare balefully at the loch," Blaine admonished.

With a mischievous gleam in his eye, Kurt tossed the last of his clothes on the ground and sprang towards his companion. They fell beneath the wind-rippled surface of the deep blue water with a splash that drew the attention of the water horses swimming in the depths. The water faeries swam off again when they found nothing more exciting than two naked young men frolicking in the shallows. Blaine surfaced with a gasp, but Kurt had already swum far out into the loch.

"So that's the game we're playing today?" Blaine challenged. "You know I always win this one!"

"Only because I know when to bow out gracefully!" Kurt called across the water. "Victory by forfeiture can't be that rewarding."

Blaine pushed off from the rocky loch bottom and cut through the water with smooth, powerful strokes. Kurt had infinite grace on land, but changelings were not natural water creatures. Only too soon, Blaine had shortened the gap and sent a wall of water at the back of Kurt's head. The faery sputtered indignantly and splashed back.

"You can do better than that," Blaine teased.

He brought his extended arm through the surface again, and Kurt disappeared behind a wave of foamy water. He gasped for breath and blinked at the droplets caught on his lashes like he couldn't tell which way was up anymore. His hair was plastered to his head, and even treading water he could barely keep his chin clear of the surface. Blaine cooed at him and swam closer.

"Come here before you drown yourself."

Blaine pulled the faery into his arms and held him close. Kurt clung to him, arms and legs wrapped around Blaine, and still the young man tread water easily. The faery continued sputtering and blinking and trying to catch his breath.

"You are adorable," Blaine said. He kissed the corner of Kurt's mouth. "Are you going to survive or do we have to stop swimming already?"

"Changelings have fur, you know," Kurt pointed out.

"Not that I'm complaining, but why did you choose a form without hair, then?"

"I was young when I made the choice. I was mimicking your body the best I could, and I didn't know about the wonders of puberty then." Blaine laughed self-deprecatingly. "I've looked this way for so long, I wouldn't change it now unless you asked me to."

"I would never ask you to change anything about yourself."

"Oh, good answer," Kurt laughed. He kissed Blaine deeply, and they slipped several inches down in the deep water. The faery squawked indignantly. "Take us back to shore before we drown!"

"But we haven't swum with the water horses yet," Blaine pouted.

"I've had quite enough being underwater for today, but you have fun. Seriously, Blaine," he added, when his companion continued to look downcast. "A hundred years, and you still feel guilty leaving me to float in peace while you get tugged around the whole bleeding loch by a water horse."

As if to demonstrate how much more he would rather stay on the surface, Kurt let go of Blaine and extended his arms and legs to float along the choppy water. The sunlight felt glorious on his face, and he breathed contentedly as peach lights flashed behind his closed eyelids. He sensed disturbances in the water that told him Blaine still tread close by. He cracked open an eye.

"This would be your cue to go bug a water horse, dummy," Kurt said sweetly. His voice sounded far away with his ears underwater, and it made him giggle for no real reason.

"Hmm. Sorry. I got a little distracted by my beautiful faery companion stretched out and waving his assets for the whole world to see."

Kurt winked saucily and waved his penis around. Blaine inhaled a mouthful of water, and Kurt smiled smugly at the sky as he went back to floating. A few minutes later, after Blaine's coughing had faded, the young man pressed a quick kiss to Kurt's lips, took a deep breath, and dove beneath the dark water. Kurt opened his eyes just in time to see Blaine's perfect, round backside flashing over the top of the water as he dove. He hummed pleasantly.

Blaine surfaced every few minutes, always a bit farther away. Sometimes, one of the water horses would surface too to splash around him. At last, one the water faeries delivered him to the distant opposite shore, and Blaine let the water horse leave before realizing his mistake. With a laugh, Kurt began swimming back to the right shore. He lay on the grass and let the sun dry his skin while he waited for Blaine to walk around the loch. A hand on his shoulder roused Kurt from his nap. Blaine leaned over him, grinning widely.

"I made a friend."

Behind Blaine stood a human girl of maybe fifteen with long, dark hair and tanned skin who looked everywhere but at Kurt and Blaine. The faery almost burst out laughing. He could imagine it, Blaine walking around the loch naked as the day he was born, greeting her enthusiastically as always, and now, the poor girl was faced with a second penis – this one half-hard from a very pleasant dream about Blaine.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Kurt said.

The girl all but ran up the hill towards the forest. Blaine watched her go with a frown on his lips, but Kurt didn't care where she disappeared to.

"She seems like a nice girl. We should try to find her later for the evening meal. Her faery is a kelpie, so she'll be alone a lot while she's here."

"Can we not talk about girls right now?" Kurt wondered.

"I think we might have another friend sympathetic to our situation. She's a very sweet girl. She said she's a Jew. Do you know what that is?"

Kurt sighed and resigned himself to having wasted a perfectly good dream. Blaine would be no use at all when he was in this mood. Sensing he'd won the right to badger Kurt with questions, Blaine stretched out on the grass over him and propped his chin on his fist.

"So do you know what a Jew is?"

"They're a religious group from Judea in Rome."

"What's Rome?"

"A large country on the continent across the sea east of Alba. Don't fear them, Blaine. The lands the faeries love are safe … for now."

"Ha! The people of Alba will never be conquered," Blaine said confidently.

Kurt patted his companion's cheek affectionately. "I should hope not."

They fell into silence for a few moments, and then Blaine asked the question Kurt had always known he would one day when he realized that he was not only different from the faeries, but from the humans they brought into their realm.

"Do you know why she kept looking at me so strangely?"

"She was trying to work out if you're human or faery," Kurt said quietly.

Blaine laughed. "That's ridiculous. I look nothing like a faery."

"No, but you don't look human either, Blaine. Your eyes are too wise for a teenager, your beauty is too flawless, your manner of speaking is like ours. She didn't know what to make of a naked man who looks to her eyes like a fantasy come to life."

The young man's brow furrowed. "If I'm not faery or human, then what am I?"

"You're the best of both worlds," Kurt answered. "You're something better than any of us, faery or human."

Blaine sat up and turned away. "I'm nothing. I'm some monstrous creation born one thing and shaped into another."

Kurt watched in dismay as Blaine gathered up his clothes and went alone into the forest.


	3. With a faery hand in hand

**WITH A FAERY HAND IN HAND**

Six days passed before Blaine brought up the subject again, but what was six days in comparison to the hundred years they had spent together?

They sat in their favorite glen between the fallen trees with wildflowers all around eating succulent fruits. Blaine passed over his share of the cream to Kurt as he had during every meal for the last one hundred years, but still the faery's eyes lit up with sparkling joy as he drank the thick, rich cream greedily.

"Mmm. Thank you," Kurt said around a smile.

"I love how something as simple as dessert can make you happy," Blaine said sadly.

Kurt's smile slipped. He set down the empty tumbler in the grass and turned to Blaine. The young man picked at the strawberries still in his lap for a moment before tossing them aside for the birds flitting around the trees.

"Something's on your mind," Kurt began. He didn't want to say anything; he dreaded how their next conversation might go, but he couldn't leave Blaine to wallow in misery.

Blaine breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly. "Yes. I've been thinking a lot, and … Kurt, I want to go back to the human realm."

The faery felt as if the moonlight and starlight had drained from him, as if magic had fled from the world and he was left an empty shell of who he was supposed to be. His lower jaw trembled, and the world swam through a sheen of moisture collecting in his eyes. He rose from the grass and turned his back to Blaine.

"I don't know who I am, Kurt," Blaine continued. His voice trembled, and Kurt could imagine the torture on his face. "I'm human, but I'm not. I think I need to spend some time around my people like I've spent time with the faeries so that I can sort out in my own head what I am and who I'm supposed to be."

Kurt said nothing. He couldn't speak with tears streaming down his face and sobs collecting in his throat.

"Please, Kurt. Don't be angry with me." He heard Blaine pacing through the dry grass. "I don't feel like I belong anywhere. The only person in the entire world who really accepts me is you."

The faery couldn't hold back his words anymore. He rounded on Blaine and gained some modicum of satisfaction seeing his companion's face crumple when he took in Kurt's red eyes and tear-stained face.

"Then why are you leaving me?" Kurt cried pitifully. "I've done everything for you. I saved you from the misery of that world. I took this form to match yours. I let you give me this ridiculous name. I let you become a man so we could be together the way humans live together. I've stayed here for a hundred years to be with you, and I would stay for a thousand more, because I love you more than anything in either realm."

Blaine's mournful eyes pleaded with Kurt to stop. He came forward with his hands outstretched, but Kurt turned away from his embrace, and finally the tears pooling in Blaine's eyes dripped down his cheeks.

"No, Kurt," he whispered hoarsely. "You don't really think I could leave you? You're everything to me, Kurt. I want to be with you until eternity ends. I just … I want to know what I am. How can I love you like you deserve if I don't even know if that kind of love is in my nature?"

"Can't you trust my word that it is?"

Blaine swallowed thickly. "I trust you in everything. But some things I need to learn for myself."

Kurt's eyes slipped closed, and he turned his back to Blaine again as the tears fell anew. He took three steps out of the glen before Blaine's accusation called him back.

"You won't talk about them, Kurt. I've asked you about my people, my homeland, my parents for years. You refuse to talk about the human realm. What other conclusion could I come to than that humans are despicable creatures who did something horrible to you? And I know that if that's true, you wouldn't tell me because you know I can't stand to see you hurting."

The faery's tears ceased to flow, but he did not brush off the tracks itching his cheeks. He shook his head at his companion. "You're wrong, Blaine. Humans never harmed me. They wouldn't dare touch a faery; they're too afraid of us."

"Then why won't you tell me about them?"

Kurt came over to his companion and took Blaine into his arms. The young man loved caresses when he was upset to remind him that although he and Kurt were cross, their love had no limits. He worked his fingers through Blaine's curls and stroked his cheeks with his thumbs.

"Because they did something worse than hurt me; they hurt you. I have nothing but hatred for anyone who could ever harm you, Blaine. If I talk about them, I'll hurt you too because you'll take my insults personally."

Blaine stared up into Kurt's quiet blue eyes. He missed the starlight glittering there, and he hated himself for being the cause of its dying. He dropped his gaze to the grass, and their bare feet hidden between the blades.

"I'll stay here."

"I can't let you do that. You'd be miserable for the next hundred years, maybe longer, and then you'd start to resent me for talking you out of this insane desire to go back to the human realm, and we'd have this fight all over again."

Blaine's head snapped suddenly. Terror played across his face, and he shook his head rapidly as the tears began falling again. "No. No, Kurt, please don't. Please don't send me away. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I made you cry. I won't bring it up ever again, I swear."

He fell to his knees and pressed his face into Kurt's stomach. His fingers clutched at Kurt's clothes as he tried to claw his way closer. He had seen it so often, humans being sent back to their own realm when they bored or angered their faery. Without Kurt, Blaine would only be half a man condemned to live the rest of his days without happiness or laughter or love.

"Blaine. Blaine." The faery stroked his hair gently until he gazed up Kurt's lithe body and met his eye. "Blaine, you are not my inferior human plaything. You are my one and only companion, and you always will be. I thought you knew that."

"I – I do. But I thought … I've never made you cry like that." Blaine buried his face in Kurt's stomach again. Cloth and skin muffled his words, but Kurt heard. "I thought you knew I would never leave you."

"You don't think faeries can be insecure sometimes? I'll be hurt if you've forgotten the first time we made love."

Blaine smiled into Kurt's stomach. Of course he hadn't forgotten, and he never would. Those hesitant touches and kisses while Blaine was still unsure of why his body reacted the way it did and Kurt had explored him in every way to exactly mimic the human form.

"You thought my seed was cream," Blaine giggled.

Kurt laughed self-deprecatingly. "That was quite the shock for me when I realized I hadn't brought a cow home with me after all."

"Hey!" Blaine swatted his companion's bottom lightly. "No comparing me to barnyard animals."

Still laughing, Kurt lowered himself onto the grass next to Blaine, and they lay back in each other's arms staring up at the starlight reflected in Kurt's eyes. He rolled his neck to take in his beautiful companion. He loved how even their fights and disagreements passed like wispy clouds through a cerulean sky with a touch and a laugh.

"I'm coming with you to keep you safe," Kurt said. "It's a dangerous world, Blaine, and you've been gone from there for so long. There are things you need to know."

Blaine rolled onto his side and propped his chin on his fist. "I don't recall much of it at all, and what I do remember seems … not quite right. I remember things – adventures and creatures – that I know can't have happened or existed."

"Human children don't see the world the way it really is. The special ones, like you, see something far better than what life hands them. Everything will be new to you there, and maybe that's best, but there are two things you must stay quiet about.

"The first is that you've lived in the faery realm. Humans fear us because they think we meddle in their lives for our own sport. They think we control the fate of their crops, their children's health, the tides of war."

Blaine kept silent, although he wanted to point out that was exactly what faeries did. He had seen it happen for a hundred years, but Kurt obviously had a different perspective on faery mischief.

"The second thing you cannot speak aloud is that you are a lover of males." Blaine opened his mouth to protest. "I know what I told you as a child, but I always intended on bringing you here where it is natural to love whoever you love. Remember what you told me so long ago, Blaine: 'Boys aren't supposed to kiss other boys. We're supposed to kiss girls.'

"If they find out either thing about you, Blaine, they will hurt you. And if they find out both …." Kurt shuddered. "Promise me you will say nothing."

"I promise."

* * *

Blaine danced around the glen waiting for Kurt to meet him. They had said they would leave at dawn, but when he awoke in the morning, he saw only an indent in their grassy bed. Looking at the flattened blades and flowers put a secretive smile on his lips. They could not be together in the human realm as they were in the land of the faeries, and they had made their last night together for awhile memorable.

"You're thinking something naughty."

The young man pressed his lips together and lifted his eyebrows at his companion. Kurt leaned against an old birch tree enjoying Blaine's lightness on his feet. He had a satchel in his hand that Blaine ignored for now.

"I was just thinking about how, even after a hundred years, the way your hips move is still a wonder."

"What's a wonder is that I can still put that silly grin on your face."

Blaine hummed deep in his throat and danced his way around Kurt. "What's in the bag?"

"Clothes. Human clothes Brittany's last human left behind. I think he was a little bigger than you, but these should work fine for now."

The young man narrowed his eyes playfully. "Is this a trick to get me naked again? Because it really doesn't take that much conniving."

"No kidding," Kurt deadpanned. "I don't think you've worn clothes more than two days this week. If you want to visit the human realm, you'll have to get used to wearing wool again."

Kurt laughed darkly and held out the rough clothes to Blaine. His companion stripped down with more than one coquettish look thrown at Kurt that vanished as soon as he donned the scratchy wool. The plain brown pants pooled around his ankles, and the shoes were a size too big, but the deep red shirt and brown vest fit him well around the chest.

"These clothes smell like sheep," Blaine complained.

"Good thing we're going to Alba."

"Ouch!" Blaine laughed.

"Make sure you find lodgings with a tub and means of heating hot water. Otherwise, you'll become well acquainted with your right hand."

"So you'll visit me?" Blaine asked eagerly. He wrapped his arms around Kurt's waist from behind and hooked his chin over his companion's shoulder.

"If you invite me inside. Or you could come out to the woods and pretend to hunt."

Blaine kissed the back of his neck. "I could do both."

"Do you want to go now? You're acting awfully cavalier for a man about to step into a dangerous realm for the first time in a century."

The young man scuffed his too large shoe on the ground. "I'm nervous."

Kurt caressed Blaine's hands were they linked around his waist. He knew exactly what his companion had been doing. He craved distraction when he was worried, and Kurt would have gladly kept him naked in their glen for the next week if it would help matters at all, but they both knew it would not.

"Take my hand," Kurt instructed. "I'll lead you through the mist."

Blaine reluctantly let go of Kurt's waist and linked his fingers with Kurt's. As the faery took a step forward, thick fog rose up around them seemingly from out of the ground, and when it cleared they appeared to be standing in the same glen, though Blaine could feel in his bones that they were not in the faerie realm.

"I'll be nearby always," Kurt said.

He tried to keep his lips from wavering and eyes from tearing to be strong for Blaine, but he lost the battle against his emotions when his companion cupped his cheeks and pressed a passionate, lingering kiss to his lips. He felt the balance of the world shift. In this realm, whatever humans said about faery magic, Blaine held all the power.

"I love you, Kurt, more than life itself. As long as you will come, I will never not invite you in."

"I will never not come to you."


	4. For the world's more full of weeping

**FOR THE WORLD'S MORE FULL OF WEEPING  
THAN YOU CAN UNDERSTAND**

In the village, Blaine followed the steady trickle of men through the muddy streets lined with farm animals, half-naked children, and refuse to a drinking hall like the one he vaguely remembered his father frequenting after long days of work. The inside of the wooden building smelled like wet straw, and no wonder with the thatch roof. A giant fire roared in the center of the room to fight off the coming autumn chill and smoke curled up and escaped through a square hole in the ceiling.

"Excuse me."

Blaine waited at the bar for the serving girl to notice him. When she turned away from the barrels of mead and met his gaze, she started violently and upturned the fermented honey onto her simple tan gown and the ends of her frizzy, red hair. The tankard clattered to the ground, and she stared wide-eyed at Blaine. His eyes shifted around the room taking in the men clad in wool and animal skins. They had lined and weathered faces, even the younger ones, with yellowing teeth and unkempt appearances. Suddenly, Blaine understood why Kurt said he did not look exactly human. He stood out among these people by lacking the signs of their hard lives.

"I'm very sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you. I'm new in town and looking for lodgings. Do you know of someplace where I could work to earn my board?"

The homely girl swallowed thickly and did not answer immediately. "The owner rents rooms. That's him over there."

She nodded in the direction of an old man with a pot belly, bright red cheeks, and a bushy gray beard. When the girl waved to him, he came over and wiped his hands on a dirty rag as he passed by half a dozen regular customers.

"What do you want then, Lorna?" the owner asked.

"Domnall, sir, this gentleman is looking for lodging. I thought I should check with you first, sir."

Domnall sized Blaine up for several tense moments. He paid special attention to Blaine's eyes, which seemed to hold something that the older gentlemen did not like to see. His lined mouth dipped into a frown.

"I don't suppose it would be good fortune to turn you away. Best go prepare a room, Lorna." The serving girl wanted to protest. "Go, if you know what's good for you." After the girl departed, Domnall turned to Blaine again. "I'll just say this once. We're good folk here who don't take with strange happenings."

"No, sir. Of course you don't. Thank you for the room. My name is Blaine."

"Good name, strong name," Domnall admitted. "I'll have Lorna bring you a meal, and then we'll talk about how you'll pay for your board."

Despite a less than warm welcome, Blaine and Domnall got along very well. The elderly gentleman overlooked Blaine's strange manner of speech better than Lorna, a girl of just sixteen, perhaps because so much of his own vocabulary had become dated in his own lifetime. His time in the faery realm had taught Blaine much about forestry and horticulture, so he tended to Domnall's garden and chopped wood, and sometimes at night he filled tankards behind the counter while Lorna served.

The girl, Domnall's great-niece and ward since her parents' passing, avoided Blaine whenever possible. Young women had never responded well to Blaine, so he did not take great offense, although he would have preferred having her company rather than not. Domnall, however, claimed the ladies did take well to Blaine. According to the tavern owner, every unmarried girl from thirteen up tried her best to catch his eye when he passed by. Blaine only laughed and said he preferred no particular one in town, which was the truth.

When he was not working, Blaine slipped into the forest and met Kurt at their glen. The faery held Blaine's head on his lap and stroked his hair while he talked about all the people he met in town and what he thought of them. Domnall was friendly, but most everyone else avoided him or addressed him civilly only if they had to. Kurt knew most of this and admitted to spying as Blaine worked and eavesdropping on conversations.

"Not everything is what it seems in the village, Blaine," Kurt warned him. "Be careful my love."

Blaine would never think Kurt made up stories to sour him against the villagers and humanity, but he also could not fathom these good, honest people who toiled all day and indulged in a few mugs of mead and hearty laughter at night with friends could lead double lives. He wondered if Kurt heard their words through old prejudices, and he since had none himself, decided to eavesdrop a little of his own.

"We're out here," Blaine called across the noisy tavern while he patted the dry barrel. "I'll go bring another up from the cellar."

Lorna nodded to let him know she had heard and went about serving without meeting his eye. Blaine hefted the empty barrel onto his shoulder and went down the rickety stairs to the cool cellar, but he stopped just four steps down and waited in the darkness behind the door and strained to hear any nearby conversation.

" … one, isn't he?" a male voice asked.

"We'll have none of that!" Lorna admonished shrilly. "Blaine is a good man who works hard for my uncle, and I'll not hear you disparaging him! If everyone would look deeper than appearance, they'd see it too."

While at first Blaine had wanted to laugh, because it appeared Domnall was right and Lorna was sweet on him, the mirth died in his throat. Dear Lorna, with her pudgy stomach and frizzy hair, did not attract many suitors. She was a kind girl, devoted to her uncle, and loyal too it seemed.

"All right, all right," the man replied with a laugh. Blaine recognized the voice as Ainsley, the shepherd from the edge of the village who spent most nights sleeping with his flock in the pasture. "I didn't mean to offend you, dearie. He's got the faery look about him, is all I'm saying."

"Well, that's rubbish, I'll tell you, Ainsley. Not a wee bit of mischief has befallen us since he arrived, and there is always mischief if faeries are about."

"True enough. I'll speak no more evil, you have my word, Lorna."

Blaine came up ten minutes later with a full barrel of mead on his shoulder. When he had it in the holder and tapped behind the bar, Ainsley and Donal the cobbler came up for refills instead of flagging down Lorna. They smiled genuinely at him, and invited him to sit for a few minutes at their table. Lorna looked very satisfied when she passed by a moment later, and Ainsley's eyes followed her as she walked behind the bar. Perhaps homely Lorna had a suitor after all.

Not everything about life in the village fell into place smoothly. Blaine had not slept with a roof over his head for a century. He hated not being able to see the starlight while he fell asleep, and he was certain living things crawled through his straw mattress. Most nights, he snuck out to the forest to sleep beneath the stars next to Kurt, but summer did not last forever in the human realm as it did in the faery land, and too soon he was forced inside by nightly frost.

Clothes were also a great nuisance to him. Humans simply wore too many. They had undergarments, pants and shirts, vests and jackets, and so many different styles of coats Blaine couldn't name them all. And he wasn't allowed to take them off whenever he well pleased to go for a swim or make love with his companion. Working days lasted from morning until evening, and any dawdling to admire the color of the sky or a pretty flower earned sharp looks from Domnall.

Worst of all was the horrendous hygiene. Blaine could not bring himself to ever use the chamber pot. He tried one night, but knowing that his own excrement lay beneath a thin towel ten feet away turned his stomach. Both Domnall and Lorna found it very odd that not bathing for a day should make him so cranky, and they were utterly dumbfounded on the days he bathed twice. Lorna had once come to his door while he brushed his teeth and screamed in fright at the foam leaking out the corners of his mouth.

"They're very funny in their ignorance," Blaine said.

Kurt hummed in the back of his throat. "Now you see them as we see them. Little people, with short little lives, and no notion of things that are so much bigger than them."

"There is good in them too," the young man said defensively.

"Of course there is. I saw a mother hold her infant son, and I've felt her son's love for me. I know they are capable of great goodness. But they are a fickle people and are capable of great evil too. Whatever they say about faeries, they are worse. We at least have long lives to teach us wisdom."

"I have seen no evil at all in the village," Blaine countered.

"Only because you don't know what to look for."

* * *

When the first snow fell over the village, Kurt and Blaine decided not to meet anymore in the forest. The wind blew too strongly through the Lowlands, and Blaine had been in the perpetual summer of the faery realm for so long his system could not cope with the harsh northern winters anymore. Kurt came to Blaine's window while rowdy drinkers still filled the tavern.

"Come inside," Blaine invited.

Kurt climbed over the window sill and landed lightly on the floor newly covered in animal skins. His bare feet coiled when he touched the dead fur, and he stepped towards the bed, but Blaine held him back by the arm. Insects in the forest were natural and welcome there, but the things that crawled around in the darkness of his mattress had driven Blaine from the bed long ago.

"I'm sorry, Kurt, but it would be better to sleep on the floor."

"Humans," Kurt muttered. "No offense."

"But this could be romantic, right?"

Blaine pulled Kurt onto the floor in front of the hearth where a warm fire popped in the grate and wrapped them up in a heavy wool blanket he'd made sure to wash himself. It smelled faintly of soap and smoke from the fire he'd dried it over, but it was soft and warm. Kurt sighed contentedly and relaxed in Blaine's arms.

"Yes, it's very romantic," he conceded. "It's been a long time since we've been warm together. I've missed cuddling with you."

Blaine kissed the soft skin behind Kurt's ear and trailed his lips down the pale column of throat. He worked his fingers into the silky collar of the shiny, glimmering faery robe to reveal more skin for him to kiss. His laved his tongue over the shining skin and bit down and sucked hard at the flesh. Kurt gave a cry of surprise and delight.

"Oh, Blaine. I've missed having you like this," Kurt moaned.

Blaine's hands trailed over his companion's body until he located the ties at the front knotted into beautiful shapes and pulled them free. The fine material fell open, at last giving Blaine access to Kurt's soft skin. He touched every place that drove Kurt mad with desire while he marked the skin over his shoulders until Kurt leaned heavily against him and writhed. His shifting hips rubbed against Blaine's arousal, and his breathing grew ragged and his explorations bolder.

"Please," Kurt whispered.

Blaine parted the folds of cloth covering Kurt's lap. The wool blanket fell away from their shoulders and pooled on the floor. The sudden chill on their flushed skin sent shivers up their spines. Kurt opened for Blaine and threw his head back onto his companion's shoulder. He mouthed at the tanned skin of Blaine's neck.

"Please, Blaine," he begged again.

The man did not make him wait anymore. He wrapped his fist around Kurt and lowered is other hand to cup him and rub at the sensitive skin just behind. Kurt did his best to keep his voice pitched low. He buried his face in Blaine's neck and choked back cries that normally would have echoed off the trees around their glen.

"Kiss me," Kurt pleaded.

He dug his fingers into Blaine's strong thighs and cried out his muffled release into Blaine's mouth. Blaine held him while he came down, although he ached for his own climax. Kurt had always been a generous lover, and soon he dipped his fingers into the pot of oil Blaine had in the cabinet by the bed while Blaine stripped off his clothes and laid back on the fur rug. Kurt's thighs straddled his companion's hips a moment later.

"By the way, my love, that does not count as you winning," he informed Blaine.

He leaned forward and caught Blaine's moan with his mouth as he settled fully onto his companion's lap and smiled around the kiss.

"But I love that you always try harder."

"One day, I'll prove that faery stamina can be beaten," Blaine promised. He rocked his hips up and Kurt's argument died on his lips. "But I don't think that night is tonight."

Kurt gave a soft laugh that turned into a moan. "I love you, you silly human."

"I love you, you silly faery."

So caught up in each other were they, they did not notice the shadow pass under the door and pause nor the startled blue eye at the keyhole.

* * *

Blaine stretched his arms high over his head and arched his back as he made his way into the dining hall of the tavern for breakfast. Falling asleep on hard surfaces was nothing new to him, but he should have known better than to let Kurt sleep on top of him. All of his muscles ached today.

When he came into the dining hall he found an unusual sight. Domnall and several of his regulars, including Ainsley and Donal, lay asleep by the fireside. Lorna sat on the stone hearth with her back to the flames, and her blue eyes fixed steadily on the hallway. She gave a cry of alarm when Blaine appeared, and jumped to her feet. The men stirred from their slumber.

"Lorna? What's going on?"

"Don't you speak to her!" the shepherd shouted.

"Ainsley," Domnall said warningly. "We agreed to settle this civilly. Blaine, have a seat."

Warning bells sounded in Blaine's head as he settled onto the bench opposite his friends, and he wondered how far away Kurt would be by now. He had only left five minutes ago, and yet his companion could run as agilely as a deer.

"Lorna brought me disturbing news last night," Domnall explained. "You've been a good guest and a friend to all of us here. I'll give you the chance to answer these claims before I – or anyone else in my house – takes any action. Lorna?"

The homely girl with the kind face had disappeared. She seemed like a wild animal now with her frizzy hair and curling lip as she leaned across the table and spat out, "You had carnal relations with a faery in my uncle's house!"

Blaine swallowed thickly. He wondered for a moment if he could deny it and somehow escape the coming heartache he did not fully comprehend but feared nonetheless, but Lorna was not finished condemning him.

"Don't think of denying it. I saw everything. You touched him until he spilled his seed, and then you licked it off your fingers. He touched himself in an unspeakable place and sat on your manhood until it happened again. And the whole time, you spoke to each other as if you have been familiar for many years. You spoke of loving one another."

Blaine knew then that he was damned. His face betrayed the truth, and the agitation of the men he had called his friends grew by double.

"I was taken to the faery realm when I was a young child," Blaine explained. "I've been there for a long time, but I wanted to come back to get to know my people."

The backhanded slap came so suddenly Blaine could not prepare himself for the pain blossoming across his cheek. He tumbled backwards off the bench, and when he climbed to his feet he found Domnall, Ainsley, and Donal glaring at him with hard eyes full of cold fire.

"You invited a faery into my house!" Domnall shouted. "You fucked a man in my house!"

The words stung more than the pain flaring across his swollen cheek. Blaine and Kurt had never "fucked" as Domnall intended the meaning. They had always loved one another, sometimes passionately and roughly and greedily, but beneath the burning desire had always been love – deep, endless, all-consuming love.

"If you'll listen," Blaine pleaded. "Humans and faeries don't understand each other, but you have such amazing potential for goodness."

Ainsley's fist knocked Blaine to the floor. Tangy, coppery blood pooled in his mouth, and it took him longer to climb to his feet this time. Donal cracked his knuckles, keen to have his turn, but Domnall wasn't done yet. He seized Blaine by the collar and hauled him upwards until only Blaine's toes touched the ground and his body curved around the man's potbelly. His face quivered with rage. Blaine had never been so frightened in his life.

"Did you invite a faery into my house?"

"Yes."

"Did you shove your cock up a man's ass?"

Blaine's jaw flexed. In spite of his fear, he would not let anyone demean his act of love with Kurt. "I made love to the faery who has been my constant companion and one true love for the last one hundred years."

Everything changed in an instant. Domnall dropped Blaine to the ground, and all four humans scrambled backwards while they made the sign again evil on their chests.

Blaine watched as if from far away as the answers he sought made themselves known to him. No man should live ageless for one hundred years; no faery should be able to enter a dwelling uninvited. He was not human; he was not faery. He understood now what Kurt meant. He was something greater; the best of both human and faery with none of their weaknesses. Not born one thing and shaped into another, as he'd so wrongly thought.

Born a human child and grown into a man with innocence preserved.

"Get out, you unnatural thing!" Domnall shouted. "Be gone from here and never return!"

Unnatural, yes. Because nothing in this world or the other could remain untouched by vice, except for Blaine.

Blaine stumbled from the tavern with none of his possessions, but too hurt and disillusioned to care. The winter chill tore through his wool clothes and bit viciously at his skin. He ducked his head and wrapped his arms around his chest as he trudged through the blowing snowdrifts towards the forest where he would meet Kurt in their glen. He fell several times into banks of snow that threatened to leech what little of his spirit had not been crushed today, but Kurt's name on his lips propelled him to his feet and through the forest.

"Blaine!" Kurt cried, when he spotted his companion. "Blaine, what happened?"

The young man shook so violently Kurt could hardly make out his words. "I understand our natures. I know what I am. I have to go back to the faery realm, Kurt. I'm not natural in any realm, but this world won't ever tolerate someone like me. Please, take me back, Kurt."

With tears in his eyes, Kurt nodded. He wrapped his arms around Blaine's freezing body and sang as they stepped through the mist into the faery realm.

"Come away, O human child!  
To the waters and the wild  
With a faery, hand in hand,

Blaine shivered violently for some time after they arrived back in their glen in the perpetual summertime of the faery realm. Kurt kept him bundled tightly in his arms and whispered words of love and adoration into his precious companion's ear.

"Innocence is too beautiful for any realm, even this one."

* * *

In the coming months, the Lowland village was plagued with evil. An unforgiving winter killed their flocks and rats spoiled their winter stores. Every last child was stolen by the faeries until only the elderly remained, and the village doomed to die a slow, sorrowful death bereft of innocence.

The day after Blaine returned to the faerie realm, a procession of faeries walked through town in broad daylight to the ancient yew tree in front of the tavern. They cut down Blaine's broken body and covered him in a shroud. As they carried him on their shoulders into the mist, they chanted a verse never forgot in all lands loved and cursed by the faeries.

"For he comes, the human child,  
To the waters and the wild  
With a faery, hand in hand,  
For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand."

**THE END**


End file.
